An illustration of a large storm approaching the United States can be scary at any time of year, but it becomes even more eye-popping when it shows a large storm approaching the United States on Nov. 5, when millions of Americans will be casting their ballots for their next president.
Just such an illustration has started floating about feverishly across social media this week, after an early run of the Global Forecast Model on Tuesday showed a potentially strong storm hitting North Carolina and Virginia on Election Day. Then, on Wednesday, that same computer model showed the storm having moved south, this time illustrating a hurricane bearing down on Florida during election week. And the Climate Prediction Center, an arm of the National Weather Service, has recently shown that there is an increased likelihood of tropical activity in the Caribbean in the days before and after Nov. 5.
This week has seen a small but growing concern about an extreme weather event around Election Day, and that fear has been amplified by people with large followings on social media. But the storm’s shape, timing and very existence are still very much hypothetical.
The illustrations show just one of several possible outcomes. They’re also predicting an outcome nearly two weeks away, which in the meteorological community is considered “guidance.” While the computer models used in forecasting weather have improved greatly over the years, generally anything over a week away isn’t something you should change your plans for — yet.
An actual forecast is more than a single image of a computer weather model. It’s an expert hypothesis based on all the available data, and meteorologists will look at trends in the data when they draw up a forecast. The global models used by experts, the Global Forecast Model and the European model, are updated four times a day, and each time forecasters will consider what has changed and what has been consistent from one to another. From this, and with the passage of time, they start to draw a likely forecast.
On Thursday afternoon, the American model runs continued to show a storm forming in the Caribbean, moving into the Gulf of Mexico and approaching Florida on Election Day.
Other forecast models, though, showed nothing like this potential storm. A concern troubling forecasters on Thursday was that the other models did show the type of weather conditions that could be favorable for some tropical activity in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico during the same time period.
This also isn’t surprising. If a hurricane were to form at this point in the season, the Caribbean Sea is where meteorologists would expect it to happen.
The Climate Prediction Center issues probability forecasts two weeks out, and it, too, has recently shown an increased likelihood of tropical activity in the Caribbean — exactly where the forecast model does show a potential storm.
So the likelihood of something forming in the Caribbean Sea toward the end of October and ahead of Election Day is high, the center’s forecasters said. But whether that “something” is a rainstorm, a tropical storm or a hurricane, — and the path and timing of any system — will become clear only in the coming week.
The post A Hurricane During Election Week? Don’t Worry Just Yet. appeared first on New York Times.
